An Examination of Web Accessibility in the Public Sector: A Case Study of Welsh Local Authorities and Users with a Visual Impairment

Abstract

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) recognised web accessibility as a contributor to allowing persons with disabilities to participate fully in life. However, until recently there were no requirements for websites to be accessible to people with disabilities, resulting in many people losing access to vital services, or reducing their independence. This research project aims to identify the level of accessibility of public sector websites for people with a disability using the case study of Welsh local authorities (WLAs) and users with a visual impairment. This aim raises two key research questions: do public sector organisations meet the required website accessibility standards? And does inaccessibility of public sector websites constitute a disabling factor to people with disabilities? A mixed-method approach was used, using three methods, an automatic accessibility audit of Welsh local authorities’ websites using FAE 2.1, a manual visual impairment focussed accessibility audit of Welsh local authorities’ websites and semi-structured interviews with both users with a visual impairment and developers of public-sector websites in Wales. The results show that people with disabilities in Wales face significant barriers when accessing local government services online which often leads to decreased independence, demotivation and excess use of slow call centres. The research found that nine Welsh local authorities do not meet the required accessibility standards mandated by law and do produce a disabling factor for users attempting to access government services. This project recommends that future research into accessibility be more disability and human-focused on working with people with disabilities to identify barriers, rather than relying on automatic auditing tools and compliance-based approaches. This project also recommends greater education and training in accessibility to allow developers to build truly universal products throughout the development stages, rather than retrofitting accessibility features into products reactively to users' needs.